I've put my first letter below, their reply and then my reply to their reply below that. Let's see what they come up with next!
Customer Services Team
First Great Western
Freepost SWB40576
Plymouth
PL4 6ZZ
Tuesday 10 April 2006
Dear Sir/Madam
I recently suffered the terrible misfortune of travelling on one of your trains and thought I’d take some time out to write to you about it.
In mid-February I purchased return tickets for travel to Castle Cary from London over the Easter weekend. I mistakenly believed that my advanced booking, coupled with the disconcertingly high amount you charged, would at least secure me a reserved seat for the journey. Sadly I was wrong. When I telephoned the number printed on the ticket in an attempt to reserve a seat I was told rather abruptly that this was not possible.
Nothing could have prepared me however for the horrors I was to witness as I tentatively boarded the 19.45 train to Plymouth on Thursday 5 April. First Great Western, I’m pleased to say, not only lived-up to my worst fears, but positively surpassed them with unswerving ineptitude. The sheer number of passengers, each desperately trying to avoid being stampeded as they left Paddington’s main concourse, was truly shocking and one I shall never be able to forget. All hope of securing a seat instantly vanished from my now fraught mind and instead my attention turned to gaining enough floor space for both my feet. After much pushing, shoving and squeezing, I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that I finally managed to acquire slightly less room than a veal calf on its way to slaughter (at least they don’t have to pay)! In fact I briefly considered translating this letter into ‘moo language’ for you – you do after all seem to treat your poor customers like cattle. However, I thought you might consider that to be a little too terse.
And so on with my story of woe. Eventually we limped out of our glorious capital five minutes late, I and my fellow bovines having resigned ourselves to several hours of standing room only. (Full credit must go to your engine at this point as it must have had a hell of a job pulling all those extra people you wrongly sold tickets to). It was soon after our belated departure that your train guard, in what can only be described a fleeting moment of genius, decided to really put the knife in by making an announcement of such extraordinary effrontery I thought my hooves would fall off. Rather than apologising for your company’s clear and obvious avarice/incompetence he decided to explain away the excess capacity on ‘the bank holiday’. Please tell me you weren’t aware the bank holiday(1) was coming? Catch you by surprise did it?
Quite frankly I regard this jumped-up, run-down reason for an excuse as an insult. The reason the train was over-crowded is because you over-sold the tickets - either because you are inept or because you were overcome by a fit of shareholder-induced greed. No other form of transport treats its customers (and their safety) with such glaring contempt – do airlines allow several hundred people to stand on their planes? Are ferry companies permitted to overload their ships? Can coach operators over-sell their buses? The answer to all these questions is no. Why then do you think you are any better?
Allow me to make a few suggestions. Count the number of seats on your trains. Sell the equivalent number of tickets (if you wish to sell more tickets than you have seats then inform your customers that they will be standing and give them a discount). Run more trains more frequently. Stop cancelling services.
I realise that this letter has probably ruined what little chance I had of securing some sort of recompense from you. If however, you are in a generous mood please feel free to send a cheque to my address.
Yours faithfully
Martin Elmore
(1) A Bank Holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom and also in the Republic of Ireland. Although there is no legal right to time off on these days, the majority of the population not employed in essential services (e.g. utilities, fire, ambulance, police and health-workers) receive them as holidays; those employed in essential services usually receive extra pay for working on these days. Bank holidays are so called because they are days upon which banks are shut and therefore (traditionally) no other businesses could operate. Legislation allows certain payments to be deferred to the next working day
Thanks very much for your letter dated 14 April 2007. I’m afraid that I must take issue with several points raised in your letter.
Firstly, you state that reservations are free of charge at the time of booking. As I stated in my letter I booked my tickets on 13 February (online) well in advance – a full seven weeks before I was due to travel. Although I telephoned several days before the journey to try and reserve a seat I was told this was not possible. Why was I not automatically given a seat reservation when I booked? If all the seats were already reserved it would have been nice to be have been told that I’d be standing. I could then have cancelled the ticket and made alternative travel arrangements.
I disagree with your comments on passenger numbers and safety. Whilst there may not currently be constraints placed upon you by the health and safety inspectorate with regards to passenger numbers you are confusing your compliance with good customer service. I can assure you they aren’t the same! You may not be breaking any laws but you are not providing your passengers with any form of comfort or dignity. You may indeed get your passengers “from a to b†(albeit 20 minutes late in the case of my last journey with you) but it is the manner in which you get them there which is so inadequate. Humans are not simply items to be stuffed into a confined space, transported and then off-loaded. It would be nice if First Great Western, in its infinite wisdom, would grasp this fact and afford basic comforts to its customers. In any case I fail to see how your Train Manager could adequately monitor the numbers on board. There were so many passengers that it would have been impossible for him to actually move down the train (I did not see him once in the 2 hours I was on the train due to this fact). That said I happen to believe the numbers were in fact dangerous. Simply getting to the toilet was an arduous and difficult task and so exiting the train quickly and safely would have proved extremely difficult had there been a fire or a crash. I will be contacting the Office of Rail Regulation and the Department of Transport on this matter and I will be forwarding them a copy of the footage taken on my mobile phone.
Thirdly, your assertion that “by choosing to board a crowded train passengers are telling you that they would rather stand on the train than wait for the next service†is not just wrong, it’s outrageous! Customers are not happy to stand. I promise you that the disgruntled people I was stood with were far from content. We do not choose to board a crowded train – we are forced into that position because that is all you provide. If you have to limit boarding then so be it – if there are no more seats there are no more seats – fair enough! Maybe that would prove the catalyst for First Great Western to put on more services? As I said in my previous letter no other form of transport ‘oversells’ on the same scale as train companies. And I’m sure that if you stopped cancelling so many services this would also have an impact – what measures are you taking on that front? You could also ask your Train Managers not come out with such flimsy excuses as ‘it’s due to the Bank Holiday’ – that’s just an insult!
I do welcome your plans to increase seating capacity however I feel that you should offer discounted tickets to those who are forced to stand. It is not fair to charge customers the same to stand as it is to sit. Would you wish to pay between £40 and £50 to stand for 2 hours? I doubt it. As I see it you are operating a service which allows you to maximise profit whilst providing a minimal service. When are you going to start listening to your customers?
